Issue #41

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.19T, down (-1.4%) from last week.

Below is the weekly performance of the top crypto and NFT assets. 

News Headline Highlights

• Ernst & Young (EY) have launched a beta version of a Ethereum-based platform to allow businesses to track their carbon footprint. It is expected by EY that the platform will allow enterprise clients to tokenize the CO2 emissions (CO2e) of their products. 
• PayPal disclosed nearly $1 billion in crypto assets held on behalf of customers on its balance sheet in a 10-Q filing with the SEC. The company indicated that it holds $943 million worth of customer assets in bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC) on its balance sheet.
• Franklin Templeton, the $1.4T asset manager, is launching a second blockchain fund, the Blockchain Fund II.
• Binance is winding down operations in Canada, citing the challenging regulatory environment. “We had high hopes for the rest of the Canadian blockchain industry,” the company tweeted on Friday. “Unfortunately, new guidance related to stablecoins and investor limits provided to crypto exchanges makes the Canada market no longer tenable for Binance at this time.”
• Coinbase established a Global Advisory Council which includes former U.S. Senator Patrick Toomey in addition to former U.S. Congressmen Tim Ryan and ​​Sean Patrick Maloney.
• Digital Asset is launching a privacy-enabled interoperable blockchain network, Canton Network, designed to provide a decentralised infrastructure for institutional clients. Goldman Sachs, Moody's, DRW, Microsoft, BNP Paribas, Broadridge, Cboe Global Markets, Deloitte, S&P Global, and SBI Digital Asset Holdings, are among the firms joining the blockchain.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• Tether, the company behind crypto’s most popular stablecoin (USDT), released their Q1 2023 Assurance Report, declaring a staggering net profit of $1.48B for the quarter. The report shows direct US T-bill holdings of over $53bn (another all time high for Tether) representing more than 64% of total reserves.
• Bitcoin Developers are debating whether or not to censor ordinals and BRC-20s after they’re popularity has resulted in transaction fees spiking to undesirable levels. The debate is playing out on the bitcoin-dev mailing list, which hosts discussions about Bitcoin development.
• Ethereum suffered technical issues last week which resulted in transaction finality not occurring  for several hours (twice!). Data sources for Ethereum network activity show that the issue was experienced by validators, which propose attestations as the network processes transactions. Developers have since released software updates to resolve recent finality issues that hit Ethereum's beacon chain and restore stability to the network.

Regulation Station

• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has just filed an amicus brief in the Coinbase  v. SEC case, calling out the SEC for acting "unlawfully" in the digital asset space. The Chamber makes 3 primary arguments:
  • Regulatory uncertainty is killing innovation in the U.S.
  • The SEC is destabilising the digital assets regulatory environment.
  • The SEC is violating Constitutional Due Process and Fair Notice rights.
• Hong Kong's push to become a digital-asset hub comes with an exacting regulatory regime, according to Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive Eddie Yue Wai-man. “Our regulation will be tight,” Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive Eddie Yue Wai-man told the media. Hong Kong will implement a new licensing regime for virtual-asset service providers on June 1 and plans to allow retail investors to trade major tokens like Bitcoin and Ether. 
• Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, has lauded the UAE as ‘Forward Thinking’ in their approach to crypto regulation amid the US crypto crackdown. “The UAE deserves a lot of credit for being forward thinking on crypto,” wrote Brian Armstrong. “First dedicated crypto regulator in the world, a clear rule book published (!), business-friendly plus strong customer protections. Really enjoying my visit so far.”

The Weekly Deal Room

• Blockworks, a crypto media company, raised $12m at a $135m valuation in a Strategic Round led by 10T Holdings.
• Pudgy Penguins, an NFT project, raised $9m in a Seed Round led by 1kx.
• Odsy Network, a layer 1 blockchain, raised $7.5m at a $250m valuation in a Seed Round led by Blockchange Ventures.
• Webb Protocol, a privacy system for cross-chain bridging, raised $7m in a Seed Round led by Lemniscap and Polychain.
• Aether Games, a web3 gaming studio, raised $4.5m in a Seed Round from investors including Mysten Labs, Polygon Ventures and Magic Eden.
• Antimetal, a cloud cost optimisation platform, raised $4.3m in a Seed Round led by Framework Ventures.
• Blocktorch, an observability platform for web3 engineers, raised $4.2m in a Seed Round led by Ideo CoLab Ventures.
• Artifact Labs, an NFT marketplace, raised $3.25m in a funding round led by Blue Pool Capital.
• Smilee, a protocol building decentralised volatility products (DVPs), raised $2m in a Seed Round led by Dialectic.